


Sister, Sister

by CSIGurlie07



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Sister-Sister Relationship, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 08:37:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20273065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CSIGurlie07/pseuds/CSIGurlie07
Summary: After Nia shares her Dreamer identity with Lena, they bond over an unlikely topic-- family. (Warning for themes of canonical transphobia)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a direct follow up to [this tumblr post](https://lena-in-a-red-dress.tumblr.com/post/186210216962/season-5-wishlist-moment-9), in which Nia shares her identity as Dreamer with Lena after seeing Lex's resurrection in a dream.

The search for Lex goes nowhere. But it does bring Nia into Lena's orbit, from which she has no inclination to leave. There's something about the woman's unfettered smiles-- rare at first, then practically unceasing-- that makes Nia feel special. There's an honesty to Lena, a frank regard of the world around her that she shares with anyone who passes some indiscernible threshold. Nia finds it refreshing, to the point that her lips loosen around her trans identity sooner than she expects.

"Can I ask you a question?" Nia asks in Lena’s office one night.

Thursdays used to be their allotted night to exchange updates on Lex, but have since become a standing meet-up at Lena's office with whatever food Nia brings. Tonight it's junk from a gas station on her way back from a dust up. Lena avoids the slim jims, but accepts the slurpee and ritz bitz readily enough.

"Shoot," comes the ready reply.

"Did you ever try to reconcile with your brother?"

Lena falls still. "After his arrest? No. The assassination attempts kind of pre-empted that idea."

Her tongue flashes a vivid raspberry-blue.

"But what about before? You guys must have fought sometimes, right? Did you ever come back from that?"

"Why do you ask?" The side step is deftly executed, and Nia allows it to divert around the sensitive subject.

"I have an older sister. She-- she was supposed to inherit our mother's gifts. When they came to me instead, she... said some awful things. I want to try and make things up, but... I dunno how to."

Lena gazes at her with kindness in her eyes. "What kinds of things?"

Nia shrugs. "That I shouldn't have them, because I wasn't a real girl."

When sharp eyes pinch in confusion, Nia realizes there’s one more reveal she has to make. Sharing her superhero identity was more difficult.

“I’m trans,” she delivers simply. 

Dark eyebrows lift in brief surprise, confirming that Lena hadn’t had a clue. But then her gaze darkens as Nia’s words click.

“Shame on her.”

Nia shrugs noncommittally. "I don't really blame her, though. Not really. All our lives, Maeve was the one who was told the lore, the stories. It was always supposed to be her.”

Shifting her seat on the couch, Lena sets her cheese puffs aside to regard Nia intently. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot,” Nia parrots, earning a grin.

“You said your mother was from Naltor, right? How did her planet understand gender?”

Nia pauses. “I… don’t know. She never said. But, she’s the first person to throw her entire love behind me when I told her.”

“But she never thought you could inherit her gifts?”

Nia's costume creaks as she slouches deeper into the white cushions of Lena’s couch. “She had a vision, when she was pregnant with Maeve. It told her that her daughter would become the next Dreamer. I always told myself that was why she assumed it was Maeve. Not that… Not that my born gender was… God, I don’t know...”

Lena’s gaze softens. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to bring up uncomfortable memories.”

“No, it's not you, it's just… I don’t know. And I feel like I should! I’m Dreamer, the next hero of Naltor. I should know more about it, but Maeve was the one who knows all that. And now I can’t even ask her.”

She can sense that Lena has more questions, but whatever her curiosity, it’s set aside in favor of reaching over and taking Nia’s hand. 

"Coming back to your question,” she says gently, steering the conversation back towards herself. “No. To be honest, Lex and I never fought like that, so there was never anything to reconcile from. Not until there was no coming back."

Nia nods glumly. It was a long shot anyway.

"But knowing what I do now," Lena continues gently, giving Nia’s hand a squeeze. "I wish I'd had the chance."

\--- 

Nia reaches out to her sister with Lena's words ringing in her ears. 

More specifically, she reaches out to her father, because Maeve still isn't responding to voicemail, texts, or email.

"You know how she is, Nia," her father says on the other end of the line. 

Nia blinks back welling tears. Yes, she knows how Maeve is. Dad thinks she'll come around in time, but Nia knows all that time will do is cement Maeve in her resentment, and give her the means to fortify the battlements.

"I just need to talk to her, Daddy. Please?"

He agrees to keep her visit secret. The concession is a little surprising, but makes sense when Nia arrives in Parthas to discover that Maeve is halfway through packing for a move to Metropolis.

"But... why?" Nia asks in confusion. "What about the studio?"

"Oh, you mean the studio where I was supposed to paint the prophetic dreams I’m never going to have?" Maeve scoffs, flinging a haphazardly folded shirt into a suitcase. "You can go ahead and have that too."

Guilt coils low and acrid in Nia's belly at her sister's spite. "Maeve, please, I'm sorry..."

_ "Sorry?!" _

"I didn't ask for this to happen!" Nia snaps. "But it did! I have these abilities, and half the time I don't know what to do with them! You spent years with Mom, learning and training. And right now, I could really use your help!"

"You have always needed to be special, Nia, admit it! You hated the attention I got from Mom, so you insisted on being a girl. Fine! But this was supposed to be what made _ me _ special, Nia. And you had to go and take that too."

Breath trapped in her chest, Nia stares at her sister. She'd thought her words the day of their mother's funeral had just been her hurt speaking. Now she knows it wasn’t. 

“I am sorry you’re hurting, Maeve, but I didn’t ask for this.” Her voice rumbles like a thunderstorm, roughened by the tears building in her chest and the anger tightening in her throat. “I didn’t ask to be born the wrong gender, and I didn’t ask to be the next Dreamer!”

Her sister glares at her, and Nia’s hands fist at her sides, every muscle in her body wound tighter than a spring. She wants to scream, release her fingers and let her energy snap out like it does with her gauntlets. 

But she doesn’t have her gauntlets, and she refuses to give Maeve one more thing to hate her for.

“Maybe,” she says instead, words crackling with rage, “you should ask yourself why the powers chose to come to me instead of someone as mean and bitter you!”

Nia turns on her heel and pounds down the stairs, bursting through the screen door and out into the late afternoon sun. Her dad comes around the corner just as she's fumbling to unlock the rental car. 

"Nia, honey?"

"I have to go," she chokes out.

She doesn't give him a chance to respond. She slams herself behind the wheel and throws the vehicle into reverse, peeling out in a cloud of dust and dry grass.

By the time she reaches the outskirts of National City, her tears still haven't fallen, and her body thrums with tension. At the first red light she hits she rattles off a swift text.

_ Can I see you? _

Lena's response is just as swift. _ Still at the office. _

Nia's heart falls in despair, just as another text buzzes through to her phone.

_ You're welcome to come here, or I can meet you? _

Relief almost sets Nia sobbing right then and there, but she manages to type out a reply with shaking fingers. _ On my way. _

She makes it all the way up to L-Corp's executive floor with a tenuous hold on her composure. But the moment she sees Lena hovering in the door of her office, features open and expressive in their sinking suspicion of Nia’s visit, her calm shatters.

Bursting into sobs, she surges into the hug Lena's arms immediately open to offer. Warmth surrounds her as Lena pulls her close, with one broad hand rubbing her back, and the other lifting to the back of Nia's head. 

"I'm so sorry, Nia," Lena says softly, squeezing Nia tight. "You deserve so much better."

Spending her childhood in Parthas, Nia's always counted herself lucky that she never had to rely on finding a family that supported her. That she'd been blessed enough to have been born into one.

But with her born family suddenly narrowed to just her father, Nia's heart reaches out in gratitude that she's been blessed with a found family as well.

\---

She doesn't reach out to Maeve again. Her dad is the one to tell her about the art program Maeve gets accepted to in Metropolis.

"I think she wants to find a new voice," he explains, in his typical gentle fashion. "I understand why, but the house gets awful lonely at times."

Nia doesn't know what to say to that. 

The void of her missing sister fills with Lena, not that either of them realize. Not until Nia receives a series of texts from Kara. 

_ Lena just declined pizza and potstickers because she says you two are hanging out later... _

_ And she didn't invite me!! _

_ Are you two having sister night???? _

It makes them laugh over tacos that night. 

"Well," Lena says, still chuckling, "I could think of worse siblings to have."

Nia shoots her a grin, nudging her with a playful elbow. "Me too."


	2. Chapter 2

Lena goes to Metropolis one weekend for business. While there, she gets roped into attending a gallery opening. The wine and cheese is formulaic, but at least some of the art proves more imaginative. 

One in particular catches her eye. It's pale and purple and cloudy with merging watercolors, as fog drifting across an alien moon. Or moons, plural. Hard to tell.

She glances at the artist card, and feels a jolt when she reads it.

** Maeve Nal** ****  
_ Naltorian Solstice, _ 2019   
Watercolor on canvas

"The piece would do well in a corporate setting," a voice says from behind. Lena turns, and finds a woman with long auburn hair smiling shyly at her. "Lena Luthor, right? Maeve Nal."

Lena accepts the handshake, but declines the sale. "Perhaps it would. However, I make a pointed effort not to do business with bigots."

The woman's eyes widen with shock, and a chaser of outrage.

"I'm a friend of your sister’s."

Maeve’s offense exaporates as swiftly as it came, soon replaced with the tell-tale shadow of guilt. Her hands start to twist anxiously, and the artist shifts in discomfort.

"I see..." Maeve swallows with an audible click. "And, ah... is she doing all right?"

"She's flourishing," Lena clips. 

Maeve nods quietly. "Good. That's good to hear."

Lena lifts an arch brow. "Is it? Last I heard, you might have been happier if I'd told you she'd slipped off a cliff somewhere."

Nia's sister at least has the decency to flinch. When she can bring herself to meet Lena's gaze again, her eyes swim with remorse.

"I said awful things to Nia. I was groomed my entire life to be Dreamer, and to have that torn away, to be… nothing? I suppose the person I was truly angry with was our mother, but her death was still so fresh, so… it latched onto Nia instead. She didn’t deserve it, I know that now."

Gazing at her, Lena senses the honesty of Maeve's words, but she makes no move to alleviate her guilt. Lena lets her squirm.

"I regret how I treated her." Bright eyes look up at Lena from beneath long lashes. "I know I don't deserve her forgiveness, but... would you tell her I miss her?"

Lena looks her up and down, swallowing the scoff that rises in her throat. All she allows is a huff of air as she hands her empty glass to a passing server.

"Tell her yourself."

She leaves without a second glance, doing her best to convince herself that it was to Nia's benefit that Maeve reach out directly, and had nothing to do with the jealous resentment rising in her chest.

\---

Lena says nothing of her run-in to Nia, and Nia mentions no updates on the situation with her family, so she lets it slide from her thoughts with an assumption that Maeve never found her courage to reach out.

Then Nia arrives to sister night with heavy features.

"Maeve called me the other day," she says. "I missed the call, but she left a voicemail, and... she wants to talk."

It’s been three months, Lena notes, and grits her teeth. Better late than never. _Maybe_.

"And what do you want?" she asks.

Nia shrugs. "I dunno. She says she didn't mean what she said, but... that kind of thing doesn't come from nowhere, you know? And I miss her, but I don't know if I miss her-her, or if I miss the her I thought I knew."

Lena nods. She understands that much, at least. When the people you love prove to be different people, you miss what they were to you, even knowing there's nothing real to miss.

Nia leans into her. "What would you do?"

Inhaling deeply, Lena releases it slowly. "I don't know if I can help you with this one,” she says carefully. “You're right-- what she says doesn't come from nowhere, and if she has any more of that nastiness still in her, you don't need to subject yourself to it. But I can't be the one to tell you whether she's worth a second chance, either. Only you know that."

"Yeah..."

"But whatever you do decide, I'm here for whatever you need, okay?"

A tired hum answers her. "I know."

\---

It must go well enough, because Lena doesn't hear about it again until Nia announces at game night that her sister is coming to National City for a visit.

"I want her to meet you guys," Nia says.

Kara brightens immediately. "That's great! We could do another game night!"

The others concur, and Lena pinches a smile of agreement. She doesn't know if it's jealousy of Nia-- of a second chance Lena never had-- or _ for _ Nia. If Maeve proves herself a decent sister after all, Lena can already see their Thursday nights fading away.

It doesn’t matter, she tells herself. As long as it makes Nia happy. And she manages to convince herself of that enough to arrive at the impromptu game night with a smile light enough to feel honest.

The fact this meet-and-greet occurs on a Thursday means nothing. 

Again, Maeve has the decency to look apprehensive, despite the group's outward warmth and strong welcome. Neither she nor Lena give any indication of having met prior, and Lena allows Kara to take the lead on breaking the ice. In time, conversation begins to flow, and the group do their best to include Maeve. 

A space exists between Nia and her sister, one that Lena eyes with a mixture of distaste and satisfaction. And if Nia drinks a little more than she usually does-- or a _ lot _ more-- no one mentions it at all. 

Trivial Pursuit starts as soon as the pizza order is placed, and Lena tries not to feel too pleased with herself when Nia immediately loops their arms together for teams. Maeve joins them too, perhaps a little more reticently.

Between the three of them, they make a strong showing, right up until the moment Lena fumbles their streak on a film trivia question. 

“Which movie,” Nia asks, eyes bright with both alcohol and enthusiasm, “first used the famous quote, '_ Life is like a box of chocolates'?" _

The entire group holds its breath to keep from answering, save Lena.

"Umm..." She grimaces apologetically to Nia. _"Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?"_

Kara's team whoops with victory, as Nia drops the card in dismay. "You've never seen _ Forrest Gump?!" _

"This should not be a surprise at this point,” Lena laughed in spite of herself. “You know I don’t do movies!”

"All right!" Nia claps, arms loose and exaggerated in her growing intoxication. "You and me, next sister's night, let's go."

Kara and Alex freeze, but Lena fills with warmth. "You're on."

"Don't worry, we'll get that one back..."

Nia lets the turn pass to the other team, and Lena ignores the way Maeve stares at her with an unfathomable expression.

\---

After a resounding comeback for Team Nia, Lena keeps an eye on the team captain. When Nia fumbles to the bathroom, Lena recognizes the ominous lurch across the threshold and quickly rises to follow. Sure enough, she finds Nia hunched over the toilet bowl, hurking her guts out. 

Lena wordlessly scoops Nia's hair out of her face, and rubs a palm against her back. "You're okay..."

"This was a bad idea," Nia moans during a break in the heaving. 

"Drinking your total body volume in alcohol?" Lena jokes lightly. "Yeah, I'd say so."

"Maeve..." she groans back. "It's not the same. She's not the same. I don't... I don't trust her, Lena. Does that make me a bad person?"

Lena kisses the back of Nia's head. "Never."

The retching resumes shortly thereafter, pre-empting any further conversation. When Lena hears a shuffle in the doorway, she turns expecting Kara, with a request for water and a washcloth on her lips.

Except it's Maeve, and the devastation on the woman’s face confirms she's heard every word. Lena holds her gaze for a long moment, until the woman retreats with a word. 

When the vomiting stops, Nia slumps against the sink cabinet, exhausted and miserable. After an exchange of soft words, Lena emerges from the bathroom to tell the others she's going to take Nia home. 

Kara nods, rising to her feet. "Sure thing. Maeve, I can drop you off at your hotel..."

"I’ll take Nia home," Maeve says quietly. 

Lena shakes her head, turning back to collect Nia from the bathroom. "Thanks, but I can manage."

"She's my sister."

The declaration pauses Lena mid-turn, and she glances over her shoulder to regard Maeve with a long look.

"Maybe by blood," she allows. She lifts one eyebrow in a perfect boardroom dismissal. "But I'm sure you've noticed by now that doesn't mean much around here."

She returns to the bathroom without a second glance. She lets Nia sit in peace until she hears a soft “_I’ll drive you home_” from Kara drift through the wall. Only then does she tuck herself under Nia’s arm and help her friend stand.

With her roommate out for the week, leaving Nia to recover alone isn’t an option. Lena camps out on the lumpy couch after helping Nia wash up and get tucked into bed, and awakes the next morning to a sore back and Nia shuffling out of the bedroom with phone in hand. 

Lena watches Nia thumb through her alerts, and pause mid-stride to read one in particular. Her shoulders slump, before clicking it off and tossing it on the counter on her way to the fridge. She returns with two bottles of water, one of which she passes to Lena before climbing over Lena's legs to slump onto the couch beside her.

"Maeve left early," Nia mutters, picking at the bottle’s plastic label. "She's already at the airport."

Lena twists the cap off her water, then trades with Nia, silently encouraging her to hydrate. Lena studies her carefully as she takes a long drink. Her skin is sallow with hangover, which only darkens her gaze further. 

"How do you feel about that?" she asks softly.

Nia's lips pinch against a tremble. "I think I'm relieved. How awful is that? I can't stand to be in the same room as my own sister!"

She wipes a hand over her face, as though it could somehow ebb the tears welling in her eyes. It doesn't. 

"Hey." 

Lena turns in her seat, tucking a wayward tuft of hair behind Nia's ear. 

"You are entitled to as much bitterness and resentment and anger as you feel," she says quietly. "And you haven't hired any assassins to take Maeve out, so you're a long way from being crowned world's worst sister, okay?"

Nia rolls into Lena's side, worming her arms around Lena's waist. Lena hugs her right back, growing a smile as the tension slowly bleeds from Nia.

"Thank you," Nia mumbles against her collarbone. "For being so awesome."

"Don't mention it."

Neither of them make any move to separate. After a few minutes, Lena feels Nia's cheeks bunch into a smile.

"What?" she asks.

"Maeve was never a cuddler."

Lena laughs. "Then you definitely lucked out with me then."

Nia nods contentedly. "Sure did."


End file.
